Last month, I helped my friends, The E family, move. In the last month, I also helped my daughters' school pack for a move. The Es have lived in their house 13 years; the school has been in this location 10 years. Let me tell you, I have seen a lot of junk, stuff, things, good stuff that's no longer needed, beautiful useful items, heirlooms, and lost & found in the past month. A lot. Moving really forces you to focus in on what's essential. This is especially true for the school, which is being torn down and rebuilt. For the first half of the next school year, The Girls' School of Austin … [Read more...]
Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom ~ Little Free Library
Just a short post today to tell you that my Christmas present finally got finished. My husband Dan and my friend Dan built a Little Free Library for me, out of scraps we had in our garages, and my friend Holly painted it to match our house. It only took contributions from a couple of people, and we were in business - the business of book exchanges. Little Free Library was started by a Wisconsin man in 2009 as a way to honor his deceased mother, a teacher. Now there are thousands of Little Free Libraries in the United States, and some in other countries, as well. It's really just a book … [Read more...]
Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom ~ The “Floordrobe”
My youngest, Audra, made me laugh recently by saying that a friend had gotten a new wardrobe from IKEA but preferred to continue using "the floordrobe." Personally, I hate the floor. How does so much stuff wind up there? I have four animals, and they each seem to shed their bodies' weight in fur every week. I don't have any carpet to trap the fur, and that's a good thing, but it also means that I have the tumbling tumbleweeds of hair every time we open the windows and a breeze gets going. Yuck. I hate a hairy floor. I also hate to walk barefoot and have stuff stick to the bottom of my feet. … [Read more...]
Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom ~ Shopping on TV
Once your house is mostly decluttered, besides maintenance, the biggest thing you need to watch out for is accumulation. Everything you buy takes you back toward The Land of Clutter. We've talked about shopping because you're angry, bored, lonely. Because it's social or habitual for you. One thing we haven't talked about is the dangers of drinking, lonliness, boredom, and TV shopping. A woman I know drinks a lot of wine every night, and she shops. The Home Shopping Network seems to be her favorite. Slightly tipsy, she orders jewelry, knick knacks, and shiny things that catch her eye while … [Read more...]
Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom ~ How to Increase Productivity
This morning, I heard an interesting article on time use and efficiency on the local public radio station. You can read the article here. The gist of it was that of the 8 hours most Americans are at work each day, only 5 of it is spend in productive work. Various guests had different solutions for this perceived problem. My favorite was from Teresa Amabile, a Harvard Business School professor. She said that "documenting progress on work, no matter how minor, is by far the most effective tool [to increase productivity]." Just staying motivated, she says, is still the best way to get work … [Read more...]
Friday’s Favorites
Colleen's visiting her mother, so I'm putting together the Friday Favorites, which are skimpier than when Colleen does it. The first thing I wanted to link to is an article from the magazine Real Simple, which I subscribe to. I think steam was coming out my ears by the time I got to the end of "What Can You Really Afford?" The author spends the entire article outlining the various causes of overspending, which of course leads to clutter along with other negative outcomes, and then she justifies it all away in the last paragraph by stating that her purchase "makes her happy." … [Read more...]
Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom ~ I Get By With A Little Help From My Friends
Even for me, some jobs are just too daunting. There is something about the art closet, for example, that terrifies and mocks me. My own desk is another source of terror. (How ironic is that?) My children's closets are rooms of mystery and wonder. The garage is, well, really big and definitely not all mine. How do I manage? Just like the Beatles sang in 1967, "I get by with a little help from my friends." The art closet is used primarily by Audra and me. Clara keeps her art supplies in her room (smart girl). Because the job is daunting to both of us, I set the timer for the 15 minutes, … [Read more...]
Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom ~ Happy Anniversary to Me
Friday was mine and Dan's 16th wedding anniversary. Sixteen years of relatively smooth sailing. Not bad. We've gone from two working adults with two dogs and two cars in a 1000 square foot home with a beautiful garden to one full-time and one part-time job with two children (13 and 10), five animals (too many), one car and a 2600 square foot home with a beautiful garden. A couple weeks ago, Colleen reprinted this post from The Happiness Project. Â I'll wait while you review it. Certainly it got me thinking about Dan and me. When we were first married, I remember quarreling about "who did … [Read more...]
Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom ~ Something is Better Than Nothing
"If you're going to do something, do it right." vs. "Something is better than nothing." Isn't it amazing how, for every piece of folk wisdom, there is an opposite piece of wisdom? I think for decluttering, "something is better than nothing" should rule the day. This weekend, I wanted to take the box of Easter decorations up to the attic and bring down the boxes of camping equipment. I didn't do those things - any of them. Even though all the Easter stuff wasn't together (the girls are still eating treats out of their baskets), I could have brought the camping equipment down. I don't have to … [Read more...]
Cindy’s Weekly Wisdom ~ Organizing to Declutter
 Can organizing help you declutter? The tidier your stuff is, the more you can pack into a small space, that's for sure. But we all know that's not the same as decluttering! Nonetheless, organizing can help you declutter in a number of useful ways: When you gather together like-with-like to organize it, it's easy to see and find your duplicate (triplicate!) items. You can either give one of them away or have a use it up challenge, whichever is appropriate. When you decide that all your books must fit on the bookshelf in the traditional up and down style, then you must declutter … [Read more...]